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’18 AND LIFE TO GO: OUR YEAR IN ALTERNATIVE MASS MEDIA

As you very well know by this juncture in the crumbling of Massachusetts media, we are one of the last outlets around that reports critically on money, power, and influence, and that covers issues others do not touch. It’s anybody’s guess why cheeseball mainstream outlets (and their shitty right-wing foils) tend to ignore topics such as poverty, surveillance, and climate change. Whatever the reason, we don’t spend too much time worrying about them; as you’ll see below, we had our hands full all year covering the stuff that they missed.

While those who often crash around these parts have difficult but long-established relationships with the hired guards and MBTA police who patrol the area, the increasing numbers now relying on the building has led to more tension than usual. Certain measures taken appear to be unnecessary, if not arbitrary acts of cruelty, such as blocking outlets so that people can’t charge phones, barricading off the warmest nooks, and enforcing a strict blanket ban on freezing nights. -Chris Faraone

Boston city government has initiated an array of climate change initiatives, including Greenovate Boston, a section of the Imagine Boston 2030 process, and—most germane to this discussion—Climate Ready Boston. They all produce very nice reports grappling with some of the challenges to humanity presented by global warming in the decades to come. But the reports are written by planners and experts who are clearly pulling their punches for reasons that remain somewhat opaque. And in doing so, any good that might come out of the reports and the policy actions that will result from them is essentially undone. -Jason Pramas

In an interview with the Dig, Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings confirmed his position to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to hold alleged criminals past the time or the bail set by the courts. “From where I stand, if I do release them back into the community, they could commit another crime,” Cummings said. The sheriff wasn’t taking the side that inspired communities across the Commonwealth to pass resolutions protecting undocumented people. Rather, Cummings and his department entered into a 287(g) cooperation agreement with ICE, which would operationalize local forces to assist Trump’s regime in deporting undocumented people on the Cape. -Eoin Higgins

Unionized bus mechanics represented by the International Association of Machinists Local 264 won an important victory in February when they agreed to a four-year contract with the MBTA—effectively ending a two-year effort by the transportation authority’s Fiscal and Management Control Board to privatize three bus garages. -Jason Pramas

Approximately one million people were impacted by the March 1 changes to MassHealth—the majority of those in the program. Of these, at least 800,000 were assigned into ACOs or Managed Care organizations (MCOs), while many others were assigned to something called the PCC, or Primary Care Clinician plan. In the PCC plan, one’s PCP coordinates all their care, and any providers they see have to be referred and take straight MassHealth. The problem: many health care providers who take insurances that MassHealth has partnered with—such as Neighborhood Health Plan, Tufts, etc.—do not take MassHealth due to its lower rate of compensation and its reputation for being slow in compensating medical claims. -Laura Kiesel

The BPD has at least four ways to collect information on Boston’s private security cameras. First, to publicize CAM-Share, community service officers have announced the program to residents at local neighborhood meetings. Second, BPD records show Cullity floated the idea of offering tax credits to “builders and store owners” that install surveillance systems and give BPD access. Third, some officers may in the near future be supplied with a cell phone or iPad to catalog locations. If an officer finds a camera, they’ll hit a button, and the camera’s geolocation will be sent to the BPD’s Regional Intelligence Center. -Daniel DeFraia

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker appointed Ron Amidon, the then-president of GOAL (Gun Owners’ Action League), the Commonwealth’s NRA affiliate group, to head the state’s Department of Fish and Game. The $27 million office is responsible for maintaining wildlife and fisheries, and issuing hunting licenses. GOAL has lobbied aggressively to change the state’s fish and wildlife laws and has pushed for standard NRA-style legislation, including but not limited to attempting to repeal Massachusetts’ ban on assault weapons. … Amidon’s appointment went through with little fanfare or controversy. -Will Meyer

UMass Amherst announced in April that it was buying the private Mount Ida College in Newton for $37 million, according to WBUR. It plans to use the campus as a base for Boston-area internships and co-ops for its students. The school will also assume Mount Ida’s debt of up to $70 million. The situation was widely viewed as an unfortunate attack on UMass Boston turf by the more “elite,” better-funded, and melanin-challenged UMass Amherst. -Jason Pramas

The Fair Share Amendment—better known as the “millionaires’ tax”—that would have gone before voters this November as a statewide referendum question was shot down this week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). So the effort to increase taxes on people making $1 million-plus a year and spend the resulting funds on social needs is over. For the moment. -Jason Pramas

The occupation of the Make Music Harvard Square Festival was just the latest move by those campaigning on behalf of EMF and against gentrification. As it turned out, the president of the group behind the event, the Harvard Square Business Association, is also the owner of the contested EMF warehouse. John DiGiovanni bought the property in 2016 for $4 million, and this past February, his tenants were notified of their pending eviction from the space. -Olivia Deng

In June, the Massachusetts House and Senate brokered of a deal that had been in the works between pro-labor and pro-business forces on those issues for months. Giving each side something it wanted in exchange for encouraging the Raise Up Mass coalition to take its remaining two referendum questions—paid family and medical leave, and the $15 an hour minimum wage—off the table, and the retailers association to do the same with its sales tax cut question. The so-called grand bargain ensured that the state minimum wage will raise to $15 an hour for many workers. But it moves up to that rate from the current $11 an hour over five years, instead of the four years it would take with the referendum version. Plus it betrays tipped employees, whose wage floor will only rise from a pathetic $3.75 an hour now to a still pathetic $6.75 an hour by 2023. Although it’s worth mentioning that even the referendum version of the $15 an hour wage plan would have only raised tipped employees to $9 an hour. When what’s needed is a single minimum wage for all workers. -Jason Pramas

The city of Boston maintains a database called “Boston School Police Department of Safety Services, Incident Report System,” into which resource officers can enter incidents involving students. ICE reportedly obtained such a report and used it at a hearing in a BPS case. It appears that any incidents filed in such a system would be accessible to the BRIC, a BPD information hub designed amidst the war on terror that gathers and passes intelligence between law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, and which also works in partnership with private sector interests. -Maya Shaffer

The African American Master Artists in Residence Program is affiliated with the Northeastern University Department of African American Studies and has provided critical free work space to AAMARP talent for 40 years. But now the artists face an uncertain future since the university’s June letter asking all AAMARP artists to vacate their studios. -Olivia Deng

In July, Bird Rides, part of a pack of electric scooter sharing companies that include Spin, Jump Bikes (an Uber-owned company that rents motorized bicycles), and LimeBike, did what it has done in several American cities over the last year, and unceremoniously dumped a bunch of scooters on the streets of Cambridge and Somerville. Without first discussing the precipitous action with the governments of those cities. Which didn’t go so well. -Jason Pramas

In July 2017, the office of Boston’s outspoken mayor, Marty Walsh, announced that on the suggestion of an ordinary Bostonian, the city would be putting up posters instructing residents on how to interveneif they were to witness a Muslim being harassed. According to correspondence the Dig obtained through FOIA, though, the mayor’s office did indeed print 50 of the posters at a cost of about $3,000. However, the responsibility for carrying out the campaign was de facto in the hands of the advertising company. They provided the space free to the city as a service, but only if another customer was not paying them to use it. -Claire Sadar

As students and teachers returned to the classroom, Boston Public Schools faced the fallout from an audit showing financial mismanagement at nearly every school, as well as a lawsuit for gender discrimination against former high-ranking administrators. The litany of woes came as BPS was already dealing with the aftermath of Superintendent Tommy Chang’s resignation at the start of the summer, three years into his five-year term. Chang, who formerly oversaw the Los Angeles Unified School District, had dealt with numerous blunders during his tenure, including an IRS audit that prompted the most recent review of finances and a disastrous rollout of new start times that outraged parents successfully forced back. -Dan Atkinson

The September events in the Merrimack Valley were unfortunate by any measure. Something bad happened to the natural gas distribution system in parts of Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover that resulted in dozens of homes being damaged or destroyed by explosions and fire, at least 25 people getting injured, and one person (tragically, an 18-year-old)getting killed. The leading theory for the conflagration is that it was triggered by a pressure spike in area gas pipes. But until the National Transportation and Safety Board concludes its investigation—which could take up to two years—we likely won’t know the cause of that spike. The company responsible, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts—a division of NiSource Inc. of Indiana—was so slow to respond to the crisis that Gov. Charlie Baker put Eversource Energy in charge of the cleanup effort. About 8,500 homes were affected, and its occupants were told that it would take months to replace the cast iron gas pipes under city streets and restore service. -Jason Pramas

Following November’s sudden shutdown of almost 100 Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo fast food restaurants, a former D’Angelo manager told the Dig: “They [are] leaving over 1,000 people without jobs and without notice. No severance pay. No PTO [paid time off] payout. Nothing. People went to work assuming they would have a job and they were turned away. Those who had jobs were given calls throughout the day to tell them to close up shop permanently. They were told they could apply at other corporate locations for consideration for rehire.” -Jason Pramas

In Boston, the biggest moment arguably came when Rachael Rollins was elected Suffolk district attorney, demolishing the more conservative independent Michael Maloney by more than 60 points. Rollins will be the first black woman to serve as DA in Massachusetts. In the ballot initiatives, Question 1, which would have limited the number of patients assigned to nurses, suffered a thumping defeat with 70 percent of voters opposing the measure. Question 2, which aimed to create a commission to investigate the financing of political campaigns, and Question 3, which reaffirmed transgender rights, both passed easily. Mass will also send two new faces to the US House of Representatives where, after the Democratic Party’s national romp, they will serve in the majority for the first time since 2011. In the 7th District, Ayanna Pressley’s meteoric rise to the House was made official as she ran unopposed to victory after upending longtime Rep. Michael Capuano in the primary. -Patrick Cochran

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